musicals

Here’s another song from the musical Chess today: Pity The Child. This is the song performed by Freddie Trumper, the American Chess champion, as he reflects on his difficult childhood and the lack of support from his parents.

This evening I’m off to see a local production of the musical Chess so I’m playing Mountain Duet from the musical today. This is the moment when Anatoly and Florence first realise they have feelings for each other, before they are interrupted by the return of Freddie who has been discussing terms with the media.

Running a bit late tonight after a very busy day at the Language Show in London. Over the next few days I’m going to be playing some of my favourite pieces from the musical Martin Guerre, written by by Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schönberg of Les Miserables and Miss Saigon fame. Today’s song is called How Many Tears.

Today’s song comes from the Jerome Kern musical Showboat. Old Man River tells of the struggle of the stevedore Joe on a showboat on the Mississippi river. It’s an interesting song for a number of reasons: it’s plodding, slow rhythm is said to represent the movement of the river itself, it’s a rare example of a bass solo in a musical, and the main melody uses the pentatonic scale.

Yesterday was apparently Julie Andrews’ 80th birthday so on hearing that I decided to make today’s songs one of the classics from The Sound of Music, and one I’ll always associate with Julie Andrews, My Favourite Things. In the original Broadway version this song was sung by Maria before she left the Abbey, but it was reworked for the film version to be sung by Maria and the children during the thunderstorm. I hope you enjoy my own take on My Favourite Things.

The Les Misérables film is being shown on UK TV for the first time tonight so I thought I’d play something from the show. I played a number of songs from Les Mis in 2010, some of which are on my Curtain Up collection, and earlier this year I played the new song from the film, Suddenly.

Red and Black is an interesting song. The student revolutionaries have formed themselves into an organisation called “La Société des Amis de l’ABC” and the café where they meet is referred to as the ABC Café (although in the original book it’s called the Café Musain). When said in French the letters ABC sound something like “ah-bay-say” which is a play on the word abaissé, meaning oppressed, so the students are “the friends of the oppressed”.

The students are meeting to plan the June Rebellion and their meeting is interrupted by the arrival of Marius who ruins the serious atmosphere with his tales of his newfound love, Cosette. For Marius red represents “his soul on fire” and “the colour of desire”, and black is “my world when she’s not there” and “the colour of despair”. For the rest of the students red is “the blood of angry men” and “a world about to dawn”, while black is “the dark of ages past” and “the night that ends at last”.